The Fangirly Diary of a Geek Girl: Wakanda Forever!

THURSDAY

Nickelodeon shared the first promo images of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! And look, racist fanboys aside, that April O’Neil is African-American is the least of the problems, since she’s the only one that actually looks good. Sorry, I am not digging these new designs. Some of those are downright ugly, like poor Splinter! But you know what else they changed? Their freaking weapons! That’s so unnecessary! And why is everything so glowy?

J.J. Abrams’ original sci-fi show Demimondefound its home in HBO and going straight-to-series! HBO described the show as “an epic and intimate sci-fi fantasy drama”. Yep, sounds like J.J. Abrams alright. Dude was so impressed with what HBO did withWestworld (where he is one of the executive producers), that they became frontrunner for the series over rival Apple.

FRIDAY

Here’s our first look of The Walking Dead season 8 midseason premiere episode, and an extended trailer of what the remainder of season 8 will have to offer. And that’s a lot of drama! The Walking Dead season 8 returns on February 25, 2018.

After saying good-bye to Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, Starz’s American Gods hired a new showrunner for season 2: Jesse Alexander, who previously served as an executive producer on shows like Hannibal, Star Trek: Discovery, Heroes, Alias, and Lost. Dude will work with Neil Gaiman, who seems quite pleased with the decision:

I’m thrilled that Jesse is [the] showrunner. He loves and understands the book, he loves and understands the TV series and he’s dedicated to making future seasons of American Gods as good and as beautiful and as unique as they can be. Shadow’s journey is going to take him, and Mr. Wednesday, and the New Gods and the Old, to some very strange places. I’m glad that we, and the cast and crew, will have Jesse shepherding us on the way.

Box office news, Wonder Woman and Justice League helped Warner Bros. reach its best year ever globally! Even if Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes didn’t mention the latter in his speech:

Warner Bros. had its best year ever at the global box office with its films grossing over $5 billion in box office receipts, led by hits like Wonder Woman, It and Dunkirk, which received eight Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture.

Talking about movies that helped boost a company, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungledid it for Sony Pictures, which reported a $93 million quarterly profit. Damn, and nobody gave a dime for this film! Congrats, Sony! Even if you suck sometimes.

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And that’s it for the week. Before I go, I want to wish Happy Birthday to Alan Cumming, James Cromwell, Elijah Wood, Will Poulter, Oprah Winfrey, Christian Bale, Kerry Washington and Brent Spiner.